


Making promises

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Letters, Love Letters, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 04:51:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9703076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: For the anonymous prompt: Quite simply (or maybe not?) Fred Thursday asking Win to marry him.





	

Fred Thursday has always been a man of his hands. A good man of his hands, people have said approvingly, when he’s helped to subdue a drunk, mend a roof, put up a trellis. He holds his hands in front of him, flexes them thoughtfully: they are square and powerful—and, now, trained to kill. But tonight they must pen a letter.

Fred Thursday has never thought of himself as a man of words. But words, now, are all they have. After a courting of shy smiles and bold kisses, her small hands in his, or clasped around his neck… Thursday shakes himself. Now it is a matter of words. And these words cannot even be private; it is a choice between the telephone, with the crackling line, the lewd comments of his mess-mates waiting for their turn on the blower, or letters, where all his words are read by the censor before ever they reach Win. He has decided, tonight, on the censor as the lesser of two evils. Fred Thursday sighs deeply, and begins.

_~~My dear Winifred,~~ _

_~~Dear Winifred,~~ _

_~~Dear Win,~~ _

_My dear Win,_

_I write tonight with my thoughts full of you. The evenings seem shorter each day, and colder; the drill is second-nature by now, as they always promised it would be. The mood of the men is narrowing to a single focus — the date of our shipping out — or else their energy is frittered away in quarrels, drinking, pranks… of the latter the less said the better. And I? Why should I set myself apart from them? I find, Win, that I cannot think of the duty before us as something real. After all this time drilling, it seems like a hypothesis, along the lines of “If on watch duty in the rain…” or “If needing to ascertain position…” I can’t imagine it, nor can I distract myself from it through small amusements._

_The reason is simple, Win—I love you. You do know this, don’t you? The words have been held back between us. I sometimes think the silence of not saying them has collected around us like moonlight, has made your face glow even in a darkened theatre, has added some sweetness to your voice on the phone, to the pauses when I stand in a room of soldiers and can hear only your breathing._

Thursday sits back from the desk and exhales deeply. After a few moments of twiddling with his pen, he sets it down entirely and picks up his pipe instead, methodically cleaning it, filling it, making it light and draw. Three long puffs in, he sets it down, and resumes.

_I love you, Win, and I want you to marry me. There it is. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. I’ve no right to ask it, I know—especially not now. Tell me to ask again in a month, or six, or a year, or after the war, and I will. I’ve nothing to offer you but the whole of my heart. No orange blossom, no “spinster of this parish and bachelor of the same,” no organ music, no honeymoon by the sea. I would give you all those things, if I could. I’d give you the world. But if we’re to have any world worth living in, my dear, it seems that I have to leave you—you, who have become the world to me—with only my promises, and my love… and, if you’ll have me, Win, my name as well, and a ring that I’ll kiss before going. You’ll think me a fool for writing this, I expect. But I am also —_

_Yours,_

_Fred_


End file.
